Join the Conversation

Police: 2 slain, 5 hurt in New Orleans shooting

Associated Press
Published 7:50 a.m. ET Aug. 11, 2014

People grieve at the scene where New Orleans Police investigate a shooting in the Lower 9th Ward neighborhood of New Orleans, Sunday, Aug. 10, 2014. Police said a drive-by shooting killed two and wounded others. All were in front of a house when a dark car occupied by men drove up, opened fire and sped off, officer Frank Robertson, a police spokesman, said in an email. (AP Photo/NOLA.com The Times-Picayune, Michael DeMocker)(Photo: Michael DeMocker, AP)

NEW ORLEANS – New Orleans police were investigating a drive-by shooting Monday that killed a man and an 18-year-old woman and wounded five other people, three of them children.

The shooting happened around 8 p.m. Sunday in the city’s Lower 9th Ward, a neighborhood that was ravaged by Hurricane Katrina and has struggled with crime.

A woman and two children aged 2 and 4, were in critical condition and a 13-year-old girl and a 37-year-old woman were in stable condition, according to Officer Frank Robertson.

All the victims were in front of a house when a dark car occupied by several men drove up, opened fire and sped off, Robertson said. Police have not release very many details of the shooting or a description of the suspects.

The Lower 9th, a predominantly black neighborhood less than 5 miles from the bustling tourist district of the French Quarter, was overwhelmed by Hurricane Katrina’s floods in 2005.

The shooting is the latest in a city dependent on tourism. In June, two men exchanged gunfire on Bourbon Street, killing one person and wounding nine others.